Faithful Decisions – The Need for Comprehensive Access to Birth Control

I am honored today to be representing Unitarian Universalism and liberal religion as a member of the Clergy Advisory Board for the Texas Freedom Network in Austin, where we are gathering to rally and speak with legislators as people of faith on behalf of the need for comprehensive access to birth control in Texas. For those who will gather today, I offer this reflection:

The Hindu Goddess Kali, one of the most revered and most powerful in their pantheon, is fearsome to look upon. Fierce eyes, disheveled hair, and protruding tongue, she carries a sword in one of her four hands and a severed head in another, surrounded by serpents and standing on the inert body of her consort, the Supreme God, Shiva. She is a chaotic Goddess; one who destroys, but also one who creates new life out of the rubble. She is fierce in battle, but also tender and nurturing. She is sakti, life-force itself, that which is the source of all things, but will ultimately be the end of all things. She is the paradox of life/no-life.

I first met this paradox of a Goddess in a world religions class, but it wouldn’t be until I was in a serious relationship, considering my own body, my youth, the tug between my sexuality and my certainty of not being ready to create a new life of my own that she took on life. Suddenly, the paradox of the Goddess of both life and not-life was not contradiction. It was wisdom. It was me. Benefitting from the comprehensive human sexuality education I had received in high school, I chose birth control to prevent becoming pregnant at that time so that I, and my future children, might live. I consciously chose to prevent motherhood and pregnancy as part of choosing to be the best mother I could be when that time came. No wonder this role belongs to a Goddess. It is a sacred, soulful choice for any person capable of bearing a child to make.

In my Unitarian Universalist tradition, when we pray, we often invoke the Spirit of Life. Life itself, that which dwells in, among, around, between us, is a wonder-inducing mystery, a sacred gift worth not only welcoming, but honoring in the self and others by recognizing and upholding their worth and dignity; by affirming the holy truth that they are both deserving of love, and capable of loving, and have the self-determination to decide when and how to do so. This is our task. The life-giving, life-affirming work of preserving and enhancing dignity, affirming worth, and making more space for love by empowering the self-determination of people to choose when or whether to create life.

Every time a someone is empowered to decide for him or herself whether or when to have children of her own, Life is honored.
Every time a young person is empowered by education to exercise the gift of their sexuality responsibly and healthfully, Life is honored.

Every time a human being seeks to care for the gift of their bodies, no matter their economic situation, insurance coverage, choice of partners…Every time they are welcomed when they come seeking care despite having been turned away by the system, by the prejudiced, by those who would seek to control or coerce them, Life is honored.

Every time a child is born who is welcomed, loved, and for whom its family has planned and prepared, Life is honored.

Daily, in cities and towns, in classrooms and clinics, parents and teachers and doctors and the people themselves do the sacred work of affirming human worth and dignity; of recognizing the sovereignty of human beings over their own beautiful bodies; of helping young people be emboldened to ask questions and speak freely. Each day, this sacred work of supporting, uplifting, empowering, protecting, and exploring creates more Life in this troubled world. We gather here with grateful hearts for those who persist in this work of empowering and assisting those who would make their choices wisely, healthfully, with discernment and with preparation, in the face of challenge, opposition and too much righteousness.

When people ask me how I, as a clergyperson, can advocate freely for sexual education and pervasive access to family planning, I am always fierce in my reply. For I walk with Kali, whose other name is Ultimate Mother, who stoops to nurse a crying baby in the midst of a battlefield, who knows that just as surely as Life emerged from the void, it will return there, Kali whose sword represents not death, but Divine Wisdom, and whose severed head represents not violence, but the death of human Ego…and whose other two hands are extended in the mudras of fearlessness and blessing. Kali, who knows that there is a time for all things, and that the freedom of the human heart to choose is rooted in its longing for love.

Here, among these grateful, alive hearts, we remember and stand in awe of the gift of Life itself, knowing that the depth of its need for nurture and care is worthy of our best planning, our wisest discernmen. It is worthy of our empowerment of one another to be sure we may care for the gifts of our own lives and the lives of the children we may someday choose to bear with reverence and joy. We stand here mindful of the many ways in which we honor and care for that gift, and fierce in our determination that all people should have ready access to the resources which will allow them to do so. We recall the worth and dignity of each human being, not just here, but across this city and beyond–especially the ones who are forgotten, turned away or shamed; the ones who depend on clinics and public resources to empower their own life decisions; the ones who feel voiceless or powerless while the powerful and wealthy treat real human beings as so many pawns on a chessboard. We stand, awash in the Mystery, in the presence of the Spirit of Life, and know that we, too, are called to be among those who stand and speak on behalf of those who cannot, to live lives in service to Life and love and dignity and self-determination, to be fierce defenders of what is just, what is compassionate, what is Life-giving.

May we support one another in this sacred work. May we be tireless, hopeful people. May we be grateful for progress made, and let that gratitude ground our steps forward in the times when we must be fierce in our resistance. In the words of Fredrick Buechner, “Here is the world. Beautiful and Terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”